Batchelor lowers handicap with Stableford win

Published:11:05Wednesday 21 August 2013

Chris Batchelor’s handicap is gradually getting lower as the good scores keep coming; this week his 43 points won the Midweek Stableford from Denis Roper and Nigel Aspden who scored 41, and this brought Chris’s handicap down to 12.

Saturday’s Betterball Medal was won with 62 by Steve Purvis and Billy Hardy, which put them four strokes clear of Tony Orton and Brian Jamieson in second and Richard Schofield and Simon Gibson in third.

There was no competition at Whitby on Sunday as a team travelled to Strensall to play a match against York Golf Club, my old stamping ground.

A whitewash looked on the cards as the first four matches all lost, but the last four pairs won to give a halved match.

The return will be played at Whitby on Saturday August 31; there are still one or two places left if you would like to play.

The competition on Saturday is a Patsome (first six holes in betterball format, the next six holes in greensome and the last six holes as a foursome).

On Sunday, it is the JW Bass for the 55s and over, with a Stableford for the under 55s and the Medal Trophy for the juniors. There will be a Midweek Stableford on August 28 for those not travelling to Eaglescliffe for the reciprocal.

In the ladies section, Kate Bradley won the Turnbull Cup with a 71, with Marjorie Mackenzie and Karen Fellows on 73. Jean Owens and Susie Sykes had 12 points in the nine-hole accumulator.

Sheena Hamilton won the August Par with 1 up against the card, from Marjorie Mackenzie and Sue Wessel who were 1 down. Susie Sykes had 13 points in the accumulator.

The men’s knockouts have all reached semi-final stages. Graham Wicking and Simon Grant play in one match of the President’s Putter, with Howard Dean and Simon Walker in the other.

Bill Estill plays Dave Upton in the semi of the Beckett Cup, and John Wightman and Dean Bennett play on the other side. In the Jim Cooke Scratch Cup, brothers Alex and Sam Wiggins must play each other, while Neil Coates and James Jewell play in the bottom half. Martin Shackleton and Steve Dosdale play Richard Barker and Garry Walker in the top half of the Milburn Foursomes, with Richard Brown and Steve Swales to play Dean Bennett and Richard Jewell in the bottom half.

Tony’s Comment: no tip this week, just huge admiration for two magnificent performances.

Firstly, the European Solheim Cup team giving the American women what for in the biennial match; to beat the Americans is brilliant, but to do it in some style in America is just fantastic.

And then on the same day Matthew Fitzpatrick of Sheffield, not content with winning the silver medal in the Open Championship and finishing runner-up in the English Amateur, becomes the first Englishman for 102 years to win the US Amateur, and won his matches so well that he only played the 18th once, because his final was over 36 holes. Awesome.